Last week’s episode of ‘Project Runway’ saw the first team exercise. Whenever the designers are split up into groups, you can always count on some drama. Boy, was there drama this time!

When ‘Project Runway’ started out this season, I thought it would be refreshing to have an older person on the show. Bert is 57 and seems to have battled a lot throughout his life. He turned to alcoholism during the ’90s, but wanted to make a comeback in the world of designing. So, he joined the show. At the outset, Bert seemed like the consummate professional – a guy who was going to eschew all the hubbub of Reality TV drama and just do his work. He won the first challenge by doing just that. Still, you never know exactly how a person will react once he’s paired with someone else.

All professionalism flew out the window with Bert. He was paired up with Viktor, and the two of them fought relentlessly. They ended up making a dress that resembled a couch and a matching set of drapes. After all the yelling and backbiting, I felt a bit sorry for Viktor. It’s easy to see that Bert is a control freak and isn’t used to “kids” telling him what to do.

Another source of hot contention this episode came when Bryce and Fallene were matched up. Fallene is a nice gal, but doesn’t seem like she was cut out to compete on a larger scale. Bryce constantly belittled her and made her seem stupid. Instead of teaching her, all he did was go behind her back to tell everyone that she couldn’t cut on the grain of the fabric. In the end, however, Bryce was the one who created a lifeless-looking tank-top and tutu, while Fallene at least created a good-looking headpiece. Unfortunately when the time came, Fallene felt too sorry to stand up for herself, and Bryce was more than willing to throw her to the wolves. Fallene ended up eliminated.

Now, I may not know much about designing. Most of my outfits consist of a T-shirt with an ironic or funny print and a pair of basketball shorts. With that said, I didn’t agree at all with one of the designs the judges picked for the Top Five. Cecillia and Danielle’s design looked like a bad ‘Mad Men’ rip-off or something, and that one got into the Top Three. I did, however, agree with the overall winner, which was constructed by Anthony Ryan and Laura. It was indeed the best-looking design out of all of them, and didn’t seem like a costume. Laura was named the winner. She has immunity in the next challenge, much to the chagrin of my wife, who would like to see Laura eliminated as soon as possible.

I hope we’ve moved past the “How crazy can we get?” challenges for now. Designing for stilts was almost too much, especially after the pet store challenge. Let’s get back to good old fashioned designing and leave the gimmicks at home.